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"Yes," Emma gasped.

"Use your other hand to touch your clit," Victoria ordered. "Keep the rhythm steady. Don't you dare stop until I tell you."

Emma's broken whimper spilled through the receiver, tightening low in Victoria's stomach. Victoria went dead still in the armchair, listening to every desperate sound from across the ocean.

“Victoria,” pleaded Emma with a trembling whisper.

"Tell me what you want," Victoria pushed, needing the verbal surrender.

"I want your mouth," Emma sobbed quietly. "I want your tongue inside of me."

Victoria closed her eyes, her head falling back against the velvet cushion. Her pulse thudded in her ears, her chest heaving, the friction and the sobs tearing through her own composure without a single touch. The sensation was paralyzing, a pressure building in her chest that she had never known how to invite, let alone control.

"I am," Victoria murmured, her voice dropping into a merciless cadence that left no room for doubt. "I'm right between your knees. My mouth is on you, Emma. Every drop. Don't look away from me. Let me feel your hips lift against my face."

"Victoria, please—"

"I’ve got you," Victoria commanded, her grip on the phone bruising, her voice fraying at the edges with a fierce, quiet possession. "Right here. Don't hold back. Ruin yourself for me. Come for me, Emma."

Emma let go. A rush of breathless sounds spilled through the speaker, ragged and raw. Hearing them tipped Victoria straight past her limit. She stiffened, biting back a curse as her own body seized, falling right into the pace of Emma’s cries an ocean away.

For a long time, the only sound connecting Illinois to the English countryside was the synchronized rhythm of their breathing. The physical distance had been obliterated, leaving Victoria thoroughly undone in the quiet of her room. Every instinct she usually relied on to maintain emotional distance had evaporated.

She picked up the handset, taking it off speaker, and shifted to the bed.

"Victoria?" Emma whispered. Her voice was thick with exhaustion.

"I'm here."

"When are you coming back?"

Victoria looked across the hotel room, staring at the pale glare of the pages resting on the desk. Friday was coming, whether she was ready or not. She had less than forty-eight hours to figure out what this thing with Emma actually meant to her, and what terrifying price she was prepared to pay for it.

"Saturday," Victoria said, without hesitation. "I'll be on the first flight out of New York."

"I'll save you a muffin," Emma murmured, her tone soft, sleep dragging at the edges.

A faint, genuine smile touched Victoria’s lips. "Do not overfeed your friends before then. Go to sleep, Emma."

"Goodnight, Victoria."

The line went silent. Victoria kept the handset pressed against her ear for a beat longer, listening to the static, before setting it face-down on the nightstand. She looked back toward the dark floor-to-ceiling glass, the indifferent lights of Chicago stretching out below, wishing for the creak of floorboards and the quiet, stubborn warmth of Rosebrook.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Victoria

The black town car crunched over the gravel of the driveway, the sound shattering the heavy static of the summer heat. In the backseat, Victoria sat with her phone completely powered down, buried at the bottom of her leather handbag. She had turned it off on Friday afternoon in Chicago, staring at the unsigned Vance files sitting on her secure drive before deliberately locking her laptop, packing her briefcase, and boarding a flight heading in the complete opposite direction of Manhattan. It was professional suicide.

And as the facade of The Amber House came into view through the tinted windows, Victoria found that she simply didn't have the energy to care anymore. She was too exhausted to calculate the damages, too tired to keep fighting herself.

The passenger door swung open, and Victoria stepped out into the glare of the afternoon sun. She was still wearing the linen suit she had boarded the plane in, stiff and out of place against the tangled green of the garden. She took her overnight bag from the driver, gave him a quiet nod, and turned toward the house.

Emma was already standing in the doorway.

Victoria stopped in her tracks. The silence between them pulled tight, dragging back the memory of a pitch-black room in Oakbridge and low voices over a phone line. Her eyes dropped over Emma—the grease on her apron, the wild strands loose from her hair, the red line of heat running straight up her neck. Whatever fatigue Victoria carried simply burned away.

Emma stepped back, leaving the threshold open. Victoria crossed it, dropping the heavy leather bag onto the floorboards. The dull thud echoed through the quiet hallway. With no hesitation, Victoria slid a hand around the back of Emma’s neck, stepping into her space and pulling her forward until their chests collided.